The other day, I was focusing terribly hard on being the most Unfuckwithable writer in America. This is despite the fact that I have not actually really written anything, so to speak, in years.

I started off well enough, meditating like a good little grasshopper on the idea of Kensho − as taught by renowned New Age guru Michael Beckwith.

I must confess that I had never heard of Zen Master Beckwith before watchingthis vid, but was completely open to the notion of transforming the incredible pain and suffering of my miserable steerage class existence into a transcendent moment of glorious self-realization.

This is what all successful writers do.

Excited at the prospect, I googled Beckwith to learn even more. Oh the horrification, when I saw that this chap not only had formed one of those dreaded foundations that are so popular in America, but that it was actually called Agape International.

Fuck me.

A “selfie” taken with a Rolleicord camera in my Greenwich Village apt in 1974

Now, I had first heard the word “agape” used by renowned Joycean scholar and poet Professor Harry Staley, when I was one of his students in an English Lit graduate seminar course that I was allowed to take, despite being only a sophomore (I’m mentioning this irrelevant fact so that you realize how smart I used to be). This was during the time when Truman Capote and Norman Mailer were in their prime, not that long ago, if you consider when Beowulf was written.

Agape became my private word, dutifully jotted down in a lined notebook, and reserved for use one day for one of those novels that would make me the heir to Capote and especially Mailer. Now, 50 years later, this latter-day Rasta interloper had used it, like a veritable word thief, to name his spiritual foundation in Culver City.

I turned to YouTube, foaming at the mouth. There he was in his glory, pimping my preciously guarded word with smug impunity; and not only that, but mispronouncing it: ag-ah-pe, instead of, aga-pe, as correctly taught by Professor Staley during his salad days.

This aggression would not stand.

I was being fucked with. Thus ended my spiritual quest with Michael fucking agape Beckwith. And yet, all was not lost. I realized I was already learning about Unfuckwithability. Damn this shit is hard!

Homework:

Now’s the time to confront the excuses you have made for not writing The Novel. Excuse #1: someone stole your idea, and it wasn’t plagiarism. They just got there first, while you were sucking Tall Boys at the local gin mill. Can you deal with it?

(Stay tuned for Lesson II, and for God’s sake, leave a fucking comment.)

#1: Because a vulgarian whom alt-right trolls moronically associate with some bogus deity named KEK now has unfettered access to nuclear codes and can vaporize the world in one unhinged moment.

#2: Because this little man (tip of the hat to JK Rowling) can continue to menace the planet by bringing down The Glory That Was Rome, piece by piece, like some sort of latter-day Caligula.

Meanwhile, the bombings and slaughterhouse occupations continue. As do the terrorist counter attacks. We are paying for the ineffectuality of our politicians and the undue influence that continues to be exerted more than ever by The Donald’s shrinking 38 per cent. Vietnam lives on, somewhere else, but no different.

The inanity all around is endless. Neologisms like weaponized are weaponized. Irony becomes a contact sport, and fabrication and coded innuendo a cover for combover racism. High school humor passes for clever. The rage and hopelessness of jobless Americans is turned into fodder for neo-Nazis and right wing clowns.

* * *

I want out.

I’ve had enough. I’m tired of being fucked with. As a true wannabe, I want to be unfuckwithable, even tho I don’t have fuck you money, so don’t have to worry about being busted in, say, the Panama Papers, as happened to young Vishen of above vid fame.

Who doesn’t want to be unfuckwithable?

Besides, I’m not in the mood; I just don’t want to be part of it anymore.

And so, in exactly 90 days, I am leaving the United States.

I am truly sorry there is so much hate and injustice in the world (insert all the usual hand wringing platitudes here), but it’s not my problem at this point.

So I will take the easy way out.

I will tell myself: I didn’t cause any of this; and I can’t fix it.

* * *

And so, on to Gouna.

See friends and family, keep my nose out of politics, enjoy the sights, take some snaps, and ignore any visigoths I may come across.